This is clearly the strangest reservoir I have attempted. But a Volcano makes a great hydraulic facade for a res so I am pretty gung ho on it. Great design by Puzzledazn. :thumb:

I'll just layout the pics and I think it will be pretty clear what's happening.

First off the volcano I bought from Ebay was a joke so I made my own with a torch and sheet of plexi.

That's the schematic. The Volcano is inside a cube resting on a "floating" baseplate that is supported above the pond part of the res. The inlet is plumbed to the volcano so the "magma" bubbles out the top rolls down the side and is collected under the base plate (there will be a 3/4" gap around it.

The base for the volcano will be a layer of UV orange with black over it and cutouts in the black like pyroclastic flow.

Here's what passes for an aquarium volcano on eBay.

To get this to work I would have to sand it flat.

That didn't take long...

The D-bag made the thing from yellow masking tape and black paper then brushed a thin coat of Resin over it...it absolutely reeks of MEK and would KILL any fish in an aquarium without a doubt...and is in no way suitable for immersion.

I cut a 12" square of 1/16" plexi and lopped off the corners into an octagon and fired up the torch.

I got to this point by using a large speed square clamped uprigth to the bench and heating the plexi and pulling it down like a hat maker would stretch a blacnk of felt over a form. I got a pretty good cone going and then switched over to a small aluminum lamp shade form a work light. Using clamps I was able to melt and fold the material into the desired shape.

Using a variety of implements I contiunued to heat and form and weld the material into the shape I desired.

I scuffed it on the sandpaper disks stuck to the bench to get an idea of where it would make contact and then marked and cut away the excess in an irregular and organic form.

The object would now lay almost perfectly flat...which it would need to, as I planned to glue to to a sub-base.

I traced the volcano onto a piece of 1/8" black acrylic and cut about 3/16" larger around it and then beveled the edge on the benchsander

Here you have a solid acrylic volcano that is non reactive, basically inert, and could easily be submerged for years in water without falling apart. In the background you have a toxic mistake waiting to happen. I am not saying that it would not serve a decorative puirpose...but it's just not safe for an aquarium...and would not hold up for long in a reservoir..and might effect the tubing and other plastic parts of the loop over time.

If I had a reason to make more than one of these I would likely have them thermoformed by the local INdustrial Plastics place that cut my reservoir parts on their laser. They have the ability to Mill one 36" cubic by CNC...all it take is money...

Since the volcano was not perfectly flat and needed a good seal I used this pernicious adhesive called Goop. This stuff can resole your tennis shoes..it drys to a firm yet flexible bond. This particular Goop is Marine Goop designed for contiuous submersion.

Then I started working with the surface to make it less smooth and perfect. I used Weldon 26...a thickened Methylacrylate Solvent type glue that dries hard as acrylic...It tends to eat into acrylic and do all sorts of ugly things...exactly what was required.

I will refrain from posting the lewd comment that come to mind...4Chan FTW...

I wanted to be sure the volcano and base were airtight and found sevarl pinholes in the bubbly parts of the volcano that I filled and bonded with the Weldon. The idea being that I could simply attach a barbed fitting to the underside of the base and (if leak tight) the Volcano would fll up and overflow as planned.

If I had used this one I would have made a plug for the top about an inch down and fitted that with a barb.

At this point I had huffed enough glue and decided I needed some paint fumes to complete my spastic high.

I started off using what duplicolor paints I had on hand, after applying a special adhesion-promoting undercoat.

I started with my darkest red and worked out from that..

I needed some yellow and orange in there...but all I had was candy metallics that were too translucent..
'
So I broke out the Oil-Based sharpie Paint Markers I just received. I had ordered these to touch up rivets..and went and got full sets of Fine Medium and Broad...I broke out the yellow red and orange Broad tips and started playing around...

Having been raised on National Geographic Magazine I had seen a few Volcanoes. The pyroclastic flow tends to go dull orange as it skins up and has rivers of bright yellow that break through it randomly...the colors represent different levels of heat really..then again it could be the fumes ^^

Everything is wet so it's shiney///but the black will dry to a satin and the paints will definitely look different when dry.

The Final touch was to mist the brilliant Paint marker colors with Candy red to mottle them and tone them.

I used Metalcast Gold sprayed onto a putty knife mixed with Red Primer to add some variation to the pools at the foot of the volcano.

Consider that there will be a UV reactive Red-Orange Fluid pumping over this surface...the UV lighting is going to toally screw with the non UV reactive pigments...so who knows what this will look like once we're done.

Anyway I need to let that sit for at least a day before proceeding to let everything settle.

Completed the base. Need that to cure then I can build a box to contain it and go from there. Lights will go underneath. Last I taclked with Puzzledazn no pump needed. I guess he is going to run this in his PC loop after all...

I have all the colors of UV reactive acrylic I know of...red invariably looks pink. I think the way to add the approriate orange hue is to go with a red-orange dye in the Fluid. The UV makes this acrylic glow Golden...and the Red tint below that should add a deeper color.

The plan is to have 4 UV lamps hidden in the top (behind the alumiunum angles) and a few more in the base right that will make the pond glow. THe ones up top should make the riverlets glow and make the fluid glow as it runs down the surfaces. We'll see.

He is defo using this inline with his PC loop...so no pump..just a pair of barbs on the outside.

THe top needs to be removable for cleaning and service so I'll just gasket that with a bead of silicon and trap it with mitred aluminum angles.

The base will have balck acrylic strips to hide tghe pond and aspace beneath the res for lights.